In A Single Bound

"Pretty girl thinks she can leap tall buildings in a single bound, carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, yet still manages to laugh at some of my jokes."

Richard Castle

Don't panic, it's not November yet. I think a horrible death-knell goes off on the first of November, like a depth-charge blown in the ocean: you can feel it in your soul. But that hasn't happened yet. However, since I want to dedicate much of The Penslayer's time in November to The Shadow Things' birthday party (hoo rah! hoo rah!), and because I am of a whimsical disposition with a tacit disregard for rules, I'm doing snippets early. Strangely melancholy moment: I look back at my last snippets post and I see how far I have come since then, how much has happened (it's been a whirlwind and a half); something goes slack in my heart as if I have just done some horrible, wonderful piece of magic and can't quite believe it. But we're not done crafting this spell: no sense in getting too emotional before the bolt is out of the bow!

cheatin' - november snip-whippets

Margaret obediently took his arm—a lean, hard-corded thing that was like holding warm amber—and soon found herself taken to a little shuttered sitting room that was full of the warm yellow light of a huge fire.

Plenilune

“I am not in the mood for dragon-riddles.”

Plenilune

“Oh, don’t stir out of your toast,” she implored him before he could put the napkin down.

Plenilune

"I am sorry you could not have met her. She was as fair to mock the fairness of Romage of Orzelon-gang, who is accounted the most beautiful woman in the Honours. By some.”

Plenilune

“They say time heals wounds, but I have never believed them.”

“Nor I.”

Plenilune

She saw half-formed memories which did not belong to her against the pearl-pink wash of firelight, images of honour and betrayal and a crescent moon adrift in a gold cloud-spun sky.

Plenilune

There was a rushing noise and a bang among the logs; sparks swirled around him like fireflies on a rich summer night. Margaret’s heart caught, but he seemed unperturbed. Throwing the poker into its bin, he waved the errant flames back into the fireplace—was it her imagination, or did they seem attracted to him, and reluctant to be shut back inside the grate?

Plenilune

“I’ll give you no quarter,” warned Skander.

Plenilune

Odd, thought Margaret, that people were willing to die for what they considered worth living for. How curious a creature man was! how full of light and darkness and paradox, the heart as of a devil and the power in his crafting hands of some sort of god. Level westward sunlight sparked on the gemmed headstall of [her companion's] mount and flung out notes of light on the dun-coloured air. How odd…

Plenilune

“I am not used to employing condescending tones to my people so I’ll tell you frankly: I am surprised you dare come here and I give bare a fig for what you have to say to me. You come bold-facedly, wench, and give little deference to a lady and no honour at all to your betters!”

Plenilune

“Tell him we expect him for tea under the first Hare gibbous moon. I would say there’s a good girl—” he released her somewhat violently “—but then I would be lying.”

Plenilune

At the same instant a light sprang up high from a candle which, in the dark, Margaret had not been able to see. It had been sitting before a mirror, and the reflection-candle flung back the light with more potency than the real thing.
“Moreover these whom he predestined, them he also glorified. This is a cosy little setting,” he added, looking around.

Plenilune

“Mine own familiar Rhea,” [he] purred. He put forward a foot alongside hers so that he was forcing her back at a precarious angle. “Would that you could dance with me, Rhea. I would put you through your steps quick enough. I heard tell once of a queen, a wicked witch, who was given shoes of red-hot iron and made to dance and dance until she fell down dead.” His lips pulled away from his dog-teeth: Margaret wondered if Death’s smile looked so hungry and charming at once. “Would that I were hot iron shoes. Would that you could dance.”

Plenilune

His words were like rods of iron heated in the furnace: hard and glowing they barred across Margaret’s heart, and though they shut out the flashing, feathered world, she felt safe behind them. “Half of us is legend,” she said, “and the rest is pain.”

Me too, Mirriam! *Sigh* Again at odds 'gainst one another in vowing our approval. ;) I love the very last excerpt. And the one about not stirring out of your toast? Not only is that a fabulous one in its own right, but I've also had the honour of reading the larger piece it's from and I adored that. I hope you finish P. soon so that the publishers can get their talons in it and we can buy it truly and read it all in one great greedy dash.

Like bits of fire and spice and richest velvet is your writing, Jenny-dear. "Half of us is legend . . . and the rest is pain." What cutting words those are! I also love this one: “They say time heals wounds, but I have never believed them.” "Nor I." You weave threads of Truth like burnished gold throughout your writing. Something in the way you wield a pen leaves shades of colors that I couldn't have imagined, colors like silvery moonshine and bleeding scarlet, burnt copper and black as dark as midnight, and all when I expected to find naught but words of black and white. I'm dying to read this book in its entirety, which I'm sure gives you a mocking sort of pleasure. :P Please, please finish Plenilune soon and put us all out of our misery.

"Odd, thought Margaret, that people were willing to die for what they considered worth living for." That one was my favorite. It was the piercing kind. The kind that sticks in your head all day long and jumps out at odd moments and won't let go of you.

Wonderful, wonderful snippets, Jenny! And, alas, I wish to give you a longer comment with more words of just how I feasted on these flashes of beauty, of the scarlet dawn colours that struck chords in my being. But this will have to suffice as I am in need of haste.